The daughter is beautiful, but Stephanie looks great too.I am still hoping that with her book Stephanie does something unexpected and exciting like getting in to see Charlie one last time and "reminiscing" with him about what might have been if they had just said 'screw Spahn' and kept going.That might be an interesting conversation.

Beautiful. I am really excited to read her book. My only fear is that despite admitting she doesn't remember much, and certainly doesn't remember anything about the days the murders happened, that the publisher is going to force it into her book. With that being said, it will cheapen her story a lot. If she is forced to write it, then it will just be the same story wedged in, unless she ends up fabricating a story. This is why I do not trust books! I hope she makes a pile of dough, though.

I want to know what are the couple of things I'm not going to share with you" that she heard about the murders. that is too tantalizing. and one thing, wasn't it Stephanie who was used as a very frightened model in Manson's "murder school" at Barker's? While he demo'd how to slit pigs throats? Surely that should have clued her in something was wrong. Its amazing to see how little she absorbed, how unaware she was, ironic when you consider Manson taught awareness.

It's also interesting to realise how scattered the Family were, how all that supposed telepathic closeness either didn't exist or was just a small core group. I guess that ranch was much bigger than it looks. It must have been as long as a street. So the Manson Family was more like a tribe than a cult. And like any tribe, there are privileged elders who know secrets and there are young ones who know nothing but what they are told, and there are groups within the group, circles in the circle, that overlap and are both exclusive and open at the same time. The men have their world and the women their's and the two are both separate and together.

This explains a lot. It isnt like a cult at all. Cults are highly organised and have a leader and founder who lives in different sphere from the others but who is there all the time. Cults have rigid rules and just like the Marines, they tear down the personality using exhaustion, repeated slogans, a cult jargon, special clothes, special names (watch the opening of Full Metal Jacket).

The Family had some elements of this, but in a more organic evolving way. People had special names if they wanted them. Or not. People came and went. They worked, but not to exhaustion. There were drugs and slogans and a kind of brainwashing, but slow and evolving and not taking in everyone.

Did Stephanie ever hear the words Helter Skelter? Or plans for a race war? She'd have mentioned it surely. It seems like Manson wasn't even the leader, from her story, that he left, often and that the people were not exactly zombies.

I'd like to ask her why she fell so hard for Charlie and I know it's to do with sex and I would like to hear about that, because I think that's how he did it, being one of those rare men who focuses on the woman's pleasure, not his own. I know how that can keep you and I also know it creates a warm feeling forever regarding that person, just as she said she felt when someone abused Charlie.

another thing: according to Bug, Charlie preached 'black-hearted medicine" and only those who were evil themselves would stay around. And by the time of the murders, the ranch was a place of horror, all full of 'murder talk' and all the love was gone. Yet Stephanie didn't find that, not did Linda, who showed up only a month before. Stephanie was there the day before, she found a place of love and kindness, even if dirty. Why din't the girls lawyers do a job on Bug, challenging this stuff?

Hmmm, I would like to add a thought here. It really seems to me that the Family members who had "reason to worry" otherwords, commited crimes, have 1 version of events with the family, but other members who were there for long enough but didnt get involved in the murders and such, have a completley different outlook on the family. Is this the "missing link"

It's a testimony to charles mansons charisma, and to his sense of humor, that he gave stephine as wedding ring, a hose clamp from a car enjine! If more men wre like charles manson, there would be more women in love.

The 1994 edition of _Helter Skelter_ had a "where are they now" afterword, and Bugliosi wrote that no one seemed to know what had happened to Stephanie. I'm glad to see she's alive and well and looking good, with a beautiful daughter.